Blah for kids
Sent: 2007-04-24 19:21:16 (PST)
To: buzzard@bayardtayloronline.com
Subject: Blah for kids
"Before you dive, get the big picture."
Fellow Buzzards,
Up until the last month or so, all my worldview presentations were to high school people and up. I didn't really think that Blah was suitable for middle school/junior high people.
But in the past month I've had the opportunity to present the basic worldviews to a group of Korean-American middle and high school students, a middle school chapel/assembly, and a homeschooling group that included kids from 4th and 5th grades all the way up to grandparents.
To reach the younger kids and not allow the experience to be boring for them, I had to think long and hard about what to present, what order to present it, and how to present it. As a result, I have moved away from some of my earlier ideas.
Here are a few of my shifts:
1. Before, I was trying more to "teach." Now, I'm trying more to "inspire" -- to get people interested in the topic so they'll want to study it more. This invention came partly out of necessity. My previous assumption was that I'd eventually be able to relatively consistently present 6-8 sessions of 75 minutes each. But that kind of regular, consistent gig rarely happens. Sometimes I get one shot, sometimes two, rarely three or four. So, whereas before I deferred on teaching "Worldview Zoo" (the overview of six worldviews) until the 2nd or 3rd session, now I'm doing it in the first.
2. This shift means that I can only give the barest of definitions for the concept of worldview in order to make time for adequate treatment of the six basic worldviews. I hate to do it, but I must defer "what all worldviews have in common" to a later session.
3. But this shift has actually been beneficial! In my earlier presentations, I began to get feedback that things were developing too slowly. They wanted me to cut to the chase. To defer the overview until seesion 2 or 3 required too much patience on the part of my listeners.
4. Also, presenting to younger and younger audiences has caused me to consider how to get kids more bodily (kinesthetically) involved in the lesson. A guy at the "Everyone Sent" conference suggested having characteristic gestures and vocalizations that go with each worldview. Now we have six really fun (and funny!) gestures and vocalizations that really burn in the big ideas I'm trying to convey. The interesting thing is, the older teenagers and adults don't seem to mind. They get into it and enjoy it. It's silly, I know, but it works.
5. I've also paid more attention to the images I put up in my PowerPoint presentations. My early presentations had a ton of words on them and a lot of washed-out colors. Now I try to trim the words to a minimum and concentrate on bold, saturated colors. I'm also trying to pay more and more attention to kiddish illustrative material, like what cartoons and computer games are popular in the youth culture. This is all pretty new to me, so I feel kind of uncertain about what I'm doing. If anybody reading this has walked this path before, I'd love to talk to you.
So my approach here is evolving. One of the things I've increasingly become concerned about is this: if you wait on teaching the biblical worldview versus the alternatives until 11th or 12th grade, it's almost too late. This stuff needs to be introduced earlier. Middle school is as good a time as any. I can't go all academic with kids at this age -- but with Blah I wasn't ever going whole hog with academics anyway. I was just getting people up to the point where they could hit the ground running with the academic part, rather than be blown out of competition right out of the starting blocks.
Do you have any ideas or wisdom you'd like to share?
To: buzzard@bayardtayloronline.com
Subject: Blah for kids
"Before you dive, get the big picture."
Fellow Buzzards,
Up until the last month or so, all my worldview presentations were to high school people and up. I didn't really think that Blah was suitable for middle school/junior high people.
But in the past month I've had the opportunity to present the basic worldviews to a group of Korean-American middle and high school students, a middle school chapel/assembly, and a homeschooling group that included kids from 4th and 5th grades all the way up to grandparents.
To reach the younger kids and not allow the experience to be boring for them, I had to think long and hard about what to present, what order to present it, and how to present it. As a result, I have moved away from some of my earlier ideas.
Here are a few of my shifts:
1. Before, I was trying more to "teach." Now, I'm trying more to "inspire" -- to get people interested in the topic so they'll want to study it more. This invention came partly out of necessity. My previous assumption was that I'd eventually be able to relatively consistently present 6-8 sessions of 75 minutes each. But that kind of regular, consistent gig rarely happens. Sometimes I get one shot, sometimes two, rarely three or four. So, whereas before I deferred on teaching "Worldview Zoo" (the overview of six worldviews) until the 2nd or 3rd session, now I'm doing it in the first.
2. This shift means that I can only give the barest of definitions for the concept of worldview in order to make time for adequate treatment of the six basic worldviews. I hate to do it, but I must defer "what all worldviews have in common" to a later session.
3. But this shift has actually been beneficial! In my earlier presentations, I began to get feedback that things were developing too slowly. They wanted me to cut to the chase. To defer the overview until seesion 2 or 3 required too much patience on the part of my listeners.
4. Also, presenting to younger and younger audiences has caused me to consider how to get kids more bodily (kinesthetically) involved in the lesson. A guy at the "Everyone Sent" conference suggested having characteristic gestures and vocalizations that go with each worldview. Now we have six really fun (and funny!) gestures and vocalizations that really burn in the big ideas I'm trying to convey. The interesting thing is, the older teenagers and adults don't seem to mind. They get into it and enjoy it. It's silly, I know, but it works.
5. I've also paid more attention to the images I put up in my PowerPoint presentations. My early presentations had a ton of words on them and a lot of washed-out colors. Now I try to trim the words to a minimum and concentrate on bold, saturated colors. I'm also trying to pay more and more attention to kiddish illustrative material, like what cartoons and computer games are popular in the youth culture. This is all pretty new to me, so I feel kind of uncertain about what I'm doing. If anybody reading this has walked this path before, I'd love to talk to you.
So my approach here is evolving. One of the things I've increasingly become concerned about is this: if you wait on teaching the biblical worldview versus the alternatives until 11th or 12th grade, it's almost too late. This stuff needs to be introduced earlier. Middle school is as good a time as any. I can't go all academic with kids at this age -- but with Blah I wasn't ever going whole hog with academics anyway. I was just getting people up to the point where they could hit the ground running with the academic part, rather than be blown out of competition right out of the starting blocks.
Do you have any ideas or wisdom you'd like to share?
